ISLAMABAD Eleven years after the fateful night that put an end to his military career, General (retd) Ziauddin Butt disclosed that General (retd) Pervez Musharraf had plans to topple the elected government since his inception as Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) in 1998. “I do know personally that he had some such plans since October 1998 when he assumed the office of the COAS,” said General (retired) Ziauddin in an exclusive but informal chat with Dawn at his residence in Lahore. General Ziauddin was “appointed” army chief by then prime minister Mian Nawaz Sharif on October 12, 1999, which triggered the series of events that led to the military coup later that night. The night proved to be no less tumultuous for Ziauddin; stripped of his military rank, he was kept in solitary confinement for two years at the headquarters of the 111 Brigade. In perhaps what is his first extensive interaction with the media, the military officer claimed that Musharraf was a “friend of mine”. At the same time, when pressed to talk further about the “plans” to carry out a coup, which dated back to 1998, the general refused to reveal anything else. He did, however, claim that the plan to topple the elected government was not a secret in the days leading up to October 12. “We were aware that General Musharraf and his cronies would take over.” Ziauddin told Dawn that armed with this knowledge the prime minister too had decided to remove General Musharraf though he (Ziauddin) was not aware of the details of what Nawaz Sharif had in mind.
The government, he said, sprang into action when on October 12 Mr Sharif was about to proceed on a scheduled visit to Shujaabad, Multan. Shortly before he was about to leave the prime minister received a telephone call from a “reliable source”. This prompted the prime minister to remove General Musharraf. “To date Mian Nawaz Sharif has not disclosed who the caller on the other end was.” Ziauddin also said that despite heading the ISI, he was kept out of the loop by the rest of the military in the run-up to the coup. He explained that one of his junior officers, Major General Ghulam Ahmed, widely known as GA, was secretly reporting to Musharraf. He said that in the ISI, most of the postings were done by GHQ and hence if the DG ISI did not enjoy the confidence of the chief of army staff, he was not just ineffective but also helpless despite heading one of the strongest intelligence agencies in the country. He also disclosed that on the night of October 12, 1999, after the military had taken over, General Mahmud Ahmed visited him and suggested that he denounce the removal of Pervez Musharraf. Ziauddin refused and ended up in solitary confinement. “I refused to become party to the unconstitutional act carried out by the fellow Generals,” said Ziauddin. He held General Musharraf; then corps commander General Mahmud Ahmed; chief of general staff General Aziz Khan; vice chief of general staff Maj-Gen Ali Mohammad Jan Orakzai; DG MO Maj-Gen Shahid Aziz and others responsible for the coup. Clad in a blue t-shirt with white trousers, General (retired) Ziauddin said that the differences between the PML-N and the military emerged after the Kargil war. Siding with Sharif, he too claimed that Musharraf started the Kargil conflict without the prior approval and knowledge of the elected government. “Even the corps commanders and principal staff officers were kept in the dark.” After the conflict, the relations deteriorated rapidly; according to Ziauddin, Musharraf began abusing Sharif in private gatherings. Sharif learnt this because he was given an audio tape in which the chief of army staff was using insulting language against the prime minister. The tape was given to Sharif by the Intelligence Bureau (IB).
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